The prodigal one

What do you do when you want to help someone, but that person just refuses to believe that anyone actually is trying to help?

I've been in an ongoing struggle for nearly two years trying to prevent someone from throwing away all hope of a decent future, yet this person seems hellbent on self-destruction. [Anyone who knows me well knows to whom I'm referring.]

Lately, he seems on the run from everyone, including people from school, friends, and family---except when he needs some money, and then he pleads yet another unexpected expense which has to be paid now. Yet, in return, when everyone who cares about him asks what he wants to do in the future, we hear nothing but a broken record: "I don't know what I want to do." Essentially, he's let the last two years slip by with nothing to show for them: no education, no real job, no accomplishments. It's not that he's unintelligent or incapable---far from it. He's one of the smartest people I know--he has simply been recalcitrant in using his talent to accomplish anything meaningful whatsoever. That's fine if you're a child or a teenager, but when you get to be an adult, you have to be willing to make your way in the world, and that seems to be a concept he has trouble with.

I'm beginning to wonder if the situation is, to quote Sartre, non-recupérable---that at this point, if there's anything that I can say or do which will reverse or even stem the tide in this horrible mess.